Pregnant Teens

This article talks about a possible pact made by highschool students to get pregnant and then raise their children together. You might be asking yourself what this has to do with education. Well…they went to school together and some are saying the lack of sex education is to blame and not the reported pact. I say it is probably a mixture of the two along with a few other factors. I know for a fact in the schools I’ve taught in (high school and middle school) that there were many young girls who were participating in sexual activities. It was thought to be the cool thing to do and few of them seemed to have any concern for consequences. How do I know this? You can rest assured that I never asked and would have been much happier not knowing. However, kids seem to think that an adult does not exist if they aren’t looking or talking. I could stand in the hallway and hear all kinds of insane details about lives I’d rather no nothing about. When I was a new teacher I’d march the kids to a guidance counselor or contact a parent but that was frowned upon as interfering and I soon learned to stop. Parents don’t want to know and school officials don’t want to upset the parents. To my knowledge none of the dozen times I tried to intervene in my first year of teaching had any positive affect. Sad but true. The other way I or you or anyone else in the world can easily find out about the lives of kids is to go to myspace. Crazy the things the kids will put out there.

What is my point? My point is pregnant teens are pregnant because there is no reason for them not to be. Their parents aren’t talking to them, schools don’t talk to them, and there really aren’t any repercussions for becoming pregnant without any way to support themselves. What can we do about this? I don’t know. Part of me thinks we should force sex education into the schools and the other part thinks that is a parents’ job. Then there is the issue of repercussions. I know there are schools that now offer day care so students with children can take their child to class with them…I think that is making it too easy. But….don’t I want all of our children to be educated. The only solutions I’ve come up with are too radical to be plausible. How do you think we can decrease the instances of pregnant teens?

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I had so much fun with the geography games from yesterday that I thought I would do a follow up geography post with this map video.  The map video shows you how to read a map.  Pretty darn cute.  Would be a great way to introduce a map lesson or a fun video to show before letting the kiddos loose on the map games I mentioned yesterday!

What did you think of the video?  Do you like songs that teach?  Do you have a favorite learning song??

As I was randomly surfing the Internet I found (you are going to have to work to follow me here but it’s a fun trip) a YouTube video that explained how maps worked that led to another video about a map game.  This map game looked like fun but I couldn’t figure out how to find it online so I read the information from the person that uploaded it and there was the link!  However, the user said they had since found a more entertaining group of games.  The link for the more entertaining games can be found here. Ah…there is no end to the amount of work I will go to just to find something to entertain and educate you!

All of the quizzes ask you to locate specific items on the map.  There are over two dozen games to play.  You can choose The World, variations on the United States, or various other countries or continents. 

These would be great to use with your children over the summer.  IF you are a teacher you could use these as rewards.  Kids love games and any excuse to be on the computer makes them happy.  If you can sneak in a learning experience all the better!

I played several of the versions and even though I taught Geography for a couple of years I was surprised by what I did (and more often didn’t) know :)  Go play the games and let me know how your geography skills stand up!  Are there other geography games out there that you especially like?  Leave your suggestions below and I’ll go check them out!

The topic of education is in the election news today.  This makes me happy and I can’t wait to see more of it.  In the article I read Obama really only says that college is not affordable for many students and that McCain has passed up opportunities to make it more so in favor of tax cuts for corporations.  Interesting, and you can read the entire article here, but I’m more interested in the education of children.  Is a college education a good thing? Yes.  Do I wish more people who want to go to college could go? Yes.  Do I think it is the most important topic in education for this election? Not by a long shot.

Ohhh candidates???  Are you listening?  Answer these questions and quit focusing on saving people money.

• How are you going to give the arts a more prominent position?
• How are you going to make our educational system more globally competitive?
• How are you going to fix (or please, please get rid of) No Child Left Behind?
• Can you make national standards and guides so all schools are teaching the same thing (with the exception of state history)
• Can you start funding public schools and let private schools take care of themselves?
• What about a required foreign language from elementary school?  Citizens of most countries speak a minimum of two languages.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could catch up?

So those are a few of the random things I’d like to see make it to the campaign chats the candidates will have along the way.  What questions would you like answered or what topics would you like addressed?

I know that for the most part graduations around the country are over. BUT if you are one of those people who puts things off till the last minute and you haven’t bought your graduate a gift yet here are two of my favorites.

The first book is the Little Big Book of Life.  This book has some fantastic quotes, letters, short essays and songs about, well, life.  It is a truly fantastic book.  There is a bit of bad language but overall really a great item, and I think most graduates would find it a book they’d go to repeatedly throughout the years.

The next book is a long time favorite from Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!.  I know what you’re thinking, he’s a children’s author.  Well, yes and no.  This is a great book for graduates because it tells them you believe in them.  Most of the kids I know who graduated this year were very anxious about leaving school behind and this book is child like enough to comfort but the message is powerful enough to be touching.  You could even splurge and make a little gift basket with the Places You’ll go theme.

I found this fantastic little overview that describes Obama and McCain education policies.  I’ve been summing it up for you over the last several weeks but now that we are down to two candidates it’s time to start focusing on the role education will play in the 2008 presidential election.  CNN did a great nonpartisan clip of the two that you can see here.

I’m pretty sad that neither wants to get rid of No Child Left Behind and I think that to improve education, as well as several other problem we are currently facing, that the new president is going to have to raise taxes (something McCain doesn’t want to do and Obama says he’ll achieve by letting the tax cuts currently in place lapse).  Oh well.  It’s going to be an interesting few months!

I’ve recently found two new FREE games online that I think are a lot of fun. Not only are these educational games fun but they are also great learning tools.  You could use these games as a teacher or as a parent or heck even just for fun if you are an adult

• The first one is Budget Hero. 
  • I had ridiculous amounts of fun with this.  It lets you control where your tax dollars go and how much taxes the country takes in and based on that tells you when the economy would go belly up!  Pretty cool stuff…shows you can’t be a hero to all and keep the country out of financial peril.  I think this would be a fantastic site to use in government, economic, history, civics, or even math classes for grades 8-12.  LOVED it. 
• Next is My Savings Quest
  • First you make your character, always fun.
  • Then you pick a career that will influence the types of ‘problems’ you have to solve.  A detective gets critical thinking questions, an accountant math, and an archeologist history and society type questions.  Have to earn that monthly check!
  • You also get to pick what kind of apartment you rent and how often you go out.
  • During the game you will get questions about spending extra money and sometimes you will lose money for random events like getting your car fixed.
  • Ultimately you are saving for a goal (which you get to pick) and at the end of six months you find out if you’ve met your goal
  • This is really fun and could be used in grades 4 and up.  It teaches about budgeting and goal setting and responsibility.  Great for a variety of classes.

I hope you will all go check these out!  Even if you don’t have a class to use them with right now they could go into your lesson plans for next year.  But….to be perfectly honest I like them so much I keep going back to them for myself.  Especially the Budget Hero.  It is really interesting to see how the changes you make effect the economy.  It’s made me rethink what I want in a president.

Try out the games and let me know what you think!  Will you use them in a class or with your own children?  Were they fun for you?

Now that most of the country is out for summer vacation parents across the nation are wondering what to do with their children.  Many of you probably have vacations planned but I doubt they will take all summer long.  As a teacher I can tell you that it will help your child if he or she does something educational over the summer and to that end I thought I’d give you a list of suggestions to help you (and more importantly your child) pass the summer.

Educational Activities for Summer Vacation

• Take your child to a museum
• Have your child write a report on what he or she saw and did at the museum.  Most museums have free pamphlets that can be used for additional information.
• Have your child make a poster about the most interesting exhibit.
• Take your child to a national park.
• Have your child write a report about why that park was created, again there are usually free pamphlets.
• Have your child take pictures of landmarks and signs that describe areas in the park.  They can then turn this into a power point presentation or a poster.
• Have your child investigate the wildlife and plants around your home or local park.
• Let them document what they find with a camera or video and then research the different animals and plants they find.  With the pictures and videos they can make a documentary or a magazine.
• Go to the library
• Let your child pick out a book for each week or month (depending on the length of the book and age of the child).  Have him or her read the book and write a report on it.  Make sure they include the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the book.
• Create an art class
• When you go grocery shopping ask for the brown paper bags.  These are great for art projects.  Most bags have at least one side with no markings.  Let your little artist explore their creative side and learn about recycling all at once.
• After your vacation have your child create a travel brochure.
• They can take pictures and journal each night of the vacation.  Then take that information and pick the most interesting aspects to include in their brochure.

Do you have any other ideas on how to keep your child engaged in learning over summer vacation?  What are your plans for summer vacation?

I found a great site that is having an open house with free access to everything.  The bad news is that the open house ends today.  However it looks like they have a ton of free education content available all the time.

The site has blogs, news topics, chats, forums, grant information, and all kinds of other cool things.  You can check out Education Week here.

I think this is going to become one of my daily stops.  Do you frequent this site?  If you just checked it out tell me what you think of it.

I found a great blog that podcasts children’s book reviews.  The book I’m going to link to is Someday When My Cat Can Talk but you should really take a look around the site because it totally rocks!  I’m always on the look out for good book reviews to point me to a new favorite author and this is going to be book marked for sure.  I can see using this in a classroom or school library to help children find out about new books or as a teacher or parent to get ideas for gifts or assignments.  Pretty great all around.

Let me know what you think of the site (how cute is “Just One More Book” for a blog name anyway?)

I hope you enjoy it!